There are loads of benefits of traveling with your kids… you give them a broader perspective of the world, introduce them to different cultures and practices, prepare them for bigger things to come, etc. But sometimes I wonder just how much my kids are soaking up from all our traveling. Will they remember it? Will they gain anything from it? Right now my son knows that he gets croissants when we go to France, that his best friend, Sara, lives in Amsterdam, and that you eat gelato and say ‘ciao’ in Italy. That’s pretty much the extent of it.

I’m sure it’s an overwhelming concept to grasp for a little kid, which is why it helps to do a bit of reading up on some of the places you visit. My favorite informative travel books for kids are from the “This is…” series by Miroslav Sasek.

Sasek believed that young people deserved to know about the things they would be seeing when they traveled. His descriptions of the different cities are marked by a subtle humor, and are filled with interesting facts about the city and its people/buildings/transport, etc. And the bold, stylized drawings are simply beautiful.

I would love to have the entire series, as they are all beautiful… and interesting! Even adults will learn from them as they are factual and informative. My son loves reading about the different cities (especially the buses, cars and buildings).

Whether they’re helping him to retain any of the info remains to be seen, but I figure it can’t hurt!

We have ‘this is London’ – and love it. Sara loves to read about the city she was born in and where her best friend lives :-)!
It’s indeed a lovely series (we also were given ‘This is Hong Kong’, by my best friend, who happens to live in London as well),
BTW, I love that picture of the people queuing before the bus stop. You should see us in Amsterdam – it’s more like a battlefield!

We love to travel as a family and we love books! Thanks for introducing us to this wonderful series. I’ve also enjoyed visiting Babyccino for quite some time and this week of traveling with kids has been great!

I love these books. My boyfriend had the original This is London as a child and so we snapped up a few of them when reissued a few years back. We have the covers of the London Paris and New York books framed on the wall of our 21 month old boy’s bedroom.